


Dark Water

by draculard



Category: Doctor Sleep (2019), Doctor Sleep - Stephen King
Genre: Angst, Childhood Sexual Abuse, F/M, Ghosts, Hurt No Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sexual Trauma, Traumatized Dan Torrance, wet dreams
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:55:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22794370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/draculard/pseuds/draculard
Summary: There was a time when seeing the woman from Room 237 made him regress.As an adult, his reaction is a little more complex.
Relationships: Dan Torrance/The Woman in Room 237
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14





	Dark Water

Dan wakes up with the taste of fetid bathwater on his lips and a sticky mess in his underwear, his erection fading. The memory of the dream won’t leave him; he sees that familiar, bloated corpse standing at the foot of his bed, closes his eyes, watches the image fade away.

It isn’t the sort of ghost he can shut away in a box. It isn’t a  _ ghost _ at all, really. It’s a nightmare. Or — he remembers rotting lips on his neck, wrinkled fingers scraping over his bare chest, nails catching on his nipples — it’s a fantasy.

Both, he supposes.

It’s ten minutes before he can manage to get out of bed. His heart pounds the whole time; his breathing gradually evens out, gradually returns to normal. By the time he stands, the cum in his underwear is cool and drying, starting to chafe. 

There was a time when seeing the woman from Room 237 made him regress. Now, the thought of her near him — touching him — ignites his fight-or-flight response, but doesn’t make him wet his pants or suck his thumb. It just makes him come.

Grimacing as he shucks off his underwear, Dan can’t help but think this is worse. 

* * *

He thinks about her in the shower. What an appropriate place to think about Room 237, really — who  _ wouldn’t _ think about the dead woman in the bathtub here? But his body’s response isn’t appropriate at all.

He pictures her stretched skin starting to rupture over bloated muscles. He imagines the green-brown stains her skin left on the porcelain. He remembers the discolored, stagnant water, a mix of liquefied flesh and long-spilled blood, of shit and piss.

The thought of it makes his legs shake, makes his legs give out. His shoulder hits the shower wall; he slumps to the bottom of the tub in slow-motion, kneeling beneath the water, letting it spray into his hair, letting his hair fall into his eyes, letting water drip from his bangs to his nose and then down the drain. 

He’s shaking. His breath hisses between his teeth. He can’t tell which is louder, the rush of water or his own heartbeat thundering in his ears.

It’s unmistakably fear.

So why is he hard? Why is his cock straining against his stomach? Why does he move one hand down almost subconsciously, stroking himself even as he struggles for breath?

He can’t get the woman in Room 237’s face out of his head. He sees her grin, her greenish skin, her yellow eyes and folds of rotting skin.

He starts crying even as he comes.

* * *

At night, he looks at the closed bathroom door and the strip of light shining underneath. He knows his emotions well enough now to recognize shame when he feels it. It’s mixed with other things — embarrassment, terror, arousal. It’s a unique mixture.

It’s a mixture he’s felt before. It’s something he’s known since he was five years old, when he didn’t have the vocabulary he needed to name it.

He fills a glass with tap water from the kitchen and downs it like it’s whiskey, telling himself it will chase the memories away. Instead, the taste is too familiar: undertones of copper and rust. Water that comes from a country well. When he thinks about it too long — when he allows himself to linger on it — he’s convinced he can taste something rotten as well.

He remembers vomiting when he was six years old because his mother gave him tap water to drink.

He remembers leaning back from the toilet with bile on his lips and sweaty hair clinging to his forehead. He remembers adjusting himself in his pants before going back to the den to see his mom — adjusting himself because somehow, even at six years old, the act of vomiting — the tap water — the bathtub — gave him an erection. 

He closes his eyes.

He puts the memory in a box.


End file.
